


My feet to follow, and my heart to hold

by Laine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Complete, F/M, Gen, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2020-07-27 16:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laine/pseuds/Laine
Summary: As war descends upon Westeros, Jaime and Sansa make a tactical retreat to the Free Cities, accompanied by Sansa's feral younger brother and Jaime's once-royal nephew. The quartet settles on the isle of Lys, and in spite of the unfamiliarity of the land, they find themselves still plagued by familiar fears and worries and heartaches.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a kinkmeme fill from 2012, but I'm excited to get back to it! 
> 
> The title of this story comes from "Journey Poem" by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Sansa closes her eyes and breathes deeply- not that there’s any purpose, for the air in the cabin remains heavy, stale, stagnant. The churning of her stomach grows worse with each passing hour, and she knows that a moment out on deck with the fresh sea breeze would make all the difference. But no, they must stay beneath the hull until they reach port- even the laughable amount of money that Jaime paid the boatswain to gain them passage on this vessel cannot change the fact that they are stowaways.   
  
A snarl behind her, and she jumps; Rickon’s direwolf mislikes the confined quarters even more than Sansa does, and although he sits at the side of the cot with surprising obedience, his grunts and growls sound as menacing as ever.  
  
Jaime had wanted to leave the animal behind- _‘Yes, we’ll be practically invisible with a giant, fanged beast in tow. Nothing conspicuous there.’_ And of course, there was the matter of coin- _‘Whoever we convince to get us aboard a ship will want a king’s ransom for smuggling a direwolf down below. It’s absurd.’_ But when Sansa tried to explain to Rickon that he’d need to leave Shaggydog in Westeros, the boy had raised such an alarming ruckus- screaming, thrashing, crying until he vomited- that Sansa could do nothing but go to Jaime and plead- _‘Please, Jaime, this wolf is all the family he knows....please, Jaime, please...’_   
  
He set his jaw and gritted his teeth, but he eventually agreed.  
  
The only creature in the cabin to object to Shaggy’s presence more than Jaime is Tommen’s little tabby cat, Ser Pounce. Three days below deck, and Sansa has seen naught of Ser Pounce but a tail poking out of Tommen’s coat. The one-time King of Westeros sits on his cot, his absolute stillness a sharp contrast to Rickon’s constant fidgeting and scratching. Green eyes seem constantly on the verge of overflowing, but Tommen sheds no tears. He only sits, plump hands reaching into his coat to stroke Ser Pounce, with not a word to say.  
  
Sansa watches Jaime watch his nephew-_ nay, his **son.** _His brow furrows with worry lines, and he inches closer and closer to the boy on the hard cot that they share. His arm twitches- he obviously wants to reach for Tommen, but he refrains- _he knows not how to be around him, now that Tommen knows the truth._   
  
Jaime catches her staring, and he flashes her a smile that does not reach his eyes. “Still feeling queasy, my lady?” His smile broadens when she frowns. “Be sick if you need to- I dare say the smell in here can’t get much worse.”   
  
Bile rises in her throat, but she swallows it down. “I’m fine,” she says in an unconvincing murmur before curling on her side of the cot beside a restless Rickon. Her little brother thrashes in his shallow sleep, his heels colliding sharply with her ankles, but she uses the pain to distract her from the nausea.   
  
She hears Jaime whispering across the cabin, urging Tommen to lie down and sleep. But the child moves not at all, not even when Ser Pounce peeks his head out of the coat to look warily at Shaggydog.  
  
The kitten mewls, the direwolf growls, and the ship slugs along into the night. 

* * *

A damp, peculiar chill beneath him stirs Jaime from his slumber. The mattress is drenched, and although the darkness in the chamber is absolute, the stench in the air clearly identifies the liquid. He reaches his left hand to Tommen and brushes his knuckles over the boy’s trousers- indeed, he’s wet himself.   
  
(Tommen pissed the bed from time to time as a small child; Jaime remembers Robert raging and Cersei fretting, but the boy seemed to grow out of it all on his own...he’d heard nothing of the affliction for years before this.)  
  
Jaime gently shakes Tommen awake, and when the boy realizes what he has done, he begins to moan and whimper (but no tears, still no tears).   
  
“I was having bad dreams,” he whispers as Jaime eases him off of the wet mattress. “I dreamed that the boat was sinking, and we all drowned down here.”   
  
“No fear of that,” Jaime offers brightly as he helps Tommen out of his wet clothes. “It’s a solid little boat, and we shan’t be here much longer.”  
  
“It was so terrible in my dream...I was cold, and I couldn’t breathe, and I was so frightened...” Jaime rummages through Tommen’s rucksack for his other pair of trousers, but the child’s whisper stops him cold-  
  
“I miss my mother.”  
  
_As do I_, Jaime thinks (and nearly speaks aloud). But he only crosses to Tommen and strokes his golden curls before handing him the clean pair of breeches.  
  
A rustling sound from the cot catches his attention- he can see Sansa in shadow, quietly stripping the mattress and flipping it over. The smell of urine lingers, but the other side is dry.  
  
“I’m sorry, Sansa,” Tommen murmurs. Sansa rolls the dirty linens in burlap before crossing to Tommen and wrapping her arms tight around him, her voice thick with drowsiness-  
  
“All will be well. You’re all right...go back to sleep.”  
  
Sansa stands and returns to her cot; Rickon has taken the opportunity to splay himself in a star shape across the entire mattress, and rather than move him to one side, Sansa curls up in a tiny ball at the end of the cot.  
  
Jaime watches her settle into position, trying and failing to make herself comfortable, and he feels his lips curve into a smile- this time, a true smile. 

* * *

They come ashore at high noon, the sun harsh and blinding after so many days of darkness. Shaggydog and Rickon do not take kindly to the sudden glare; the direwolf squeezes its massive body under the cot to escape the brightness, and Rickon struggles and shrieks in that feral way that chills Sansa to her bones.   
  
She tries to coax Rickon out of the cabin- first with sweet words, then with harder ones, and finally with physical force. But he’s strong for his size, and she finds herself unable to move him. Shaggydog becomes agitated the moment she closes her hands around Rickon’s wrists, and she releases a light shriek when the wolf bares its teeth.  
  
But then Jaime comes and stands behind Rickon, wrapping his arms around the child and pulling him to his chest. She’s seen him do this before at night, when Rickon’s dreams set him to shaking and thrashing. He’ll hold Rickon in place, breathing steadily until the boy breathes with him, firm and solid and secure.   
  
Tommen stands quietly in the door of the cabin, and Sansa slips her hand into his and gives a gentle squeeze as they watch Jaime lift Rickon off the ground. Shaggydog snarls and snaps his jaws in Jaime’s direction, but a nod from Rickon calms him immediately.   
  
They make quite a spectacle when they step out onto the sand: filthy and pasty and disheveled, every one. Sansa gazes longingly at the crystal-blue water- she wants nothing more than to strip off her clothes and dive in, but she remembers that the salty water is no good for washing. Jaime places Rickon down on the ground, and he collapses into a white sand dune, Shaggydog flopping down beside him. Sansa joins them, sighing with pleasure as she stretches her cramped arms and legs.   
  
Tommen stands a few paces in front of them, the tips of his boots growing damper with each ebb and flow of the tide. The sunlight reflects off the water and catches in his eyes- Sansa notices for the first time that they are not emerald like his mother’s and his father’s, but a rich teal, with a strong undertone of blue.   
  
His voice is quiet, but he’s spoken so infrequently during the journey that everyone turns to listen now:  
  
“Look how clear it is- you can see the fishes swimming.”   
  
Sansa stands and walks to Tommen, peering over his head at the crystal-clear water below. Behind her, Shaggy and Rickon roll in the sand, coating themselves until they resemble nothing so much as sugared pastries.  
  
“It’s pretty here,” Tommen breathes, and Sansa’s heart jumps into her throat when she sees him smile for the first time since they fled King’s Landing.  
  
Jaime’s voice calls to them from the closest road- he’s found a cart to take them to Gerion Lannister’s secret Lysene pavilion, where they’ll be staying.   
  
“Where are we going?” Rickon shouts, flinging sand every which way as he clambers over.   
  
Tommen looks at the younger boy and shrugs. “Home, I suppose.”  
  
The word stings Sansa’s insides, but she finds that she can do nothing but nod.   
  
Tommen slings his rucksack over his shoulder, checking first to make sure that Ser Pounce is safely inside. Then Sansa takes his hand in her left, Rickon’s in her right, and they go.


	2. Chapter Two

“This is not a place for children.”  
  
Sansa’s pretty face hardens into a grim mask, and Jaime can’t help but laugh at her solemnity.   
  
“I don’t see why not. There’s beautiful weather, plenty of room to run and play, enough space in the pavilion to keep Tommen’s kitten and that snarling monster well away from each other...”  
  
“That isn’t what I mean.” She lowers herself onto the divan and pauses, a light flush appearing on the apples of her cheeks. “I took the boys down to the marketplace today, and....” She twists her lips, but Jaime just smiles back- “...we saw people behaving very immodestly.”  
  
“How so?”   
  
“Don’t make me say it.” Her blush deepens, and Jaime is reminded once again just how very young she is. She reaches up to wipe a bead of sweat from her brow; in spite of the balmy Lysene weather, she still wears the medium-weight gowns that she donned in King’s Landing, complete with hose and underskirts.   
  
Of course, she only brought two with her from King’s Landing, and both are looking rather threadbare these days. Jaime rakes his gaze over her as he leans back in his chair and breezily changes the subject. “Did you purchase new clothing for the boys in the market?”  
  
“I...yes, I did.” She’s thrown by the nonsequitur; her brows knit together and her frown deepens.  
  
“And at no time were you tempted to buy a new frock for yourself?”  
  
“I could...I could never wear what the women wear here.”   
  
Jaime’s grin softens- this journey has changed her, pulverizing the frightened wisp of a child and hardening her into a capable and competent young woman (not unlike her own mother, he finds himself thinking more often than he would like). But then a flash of pink will stain her face, her voice will waver, her gaze will flutter downward, and she’ll become a girl again.   
  
“I’m not sure I agree,” he says as he stands and crosses to the armoire in the corner. “I hope you won’t think me too presumptuous, my lady”- he punctuates this phrase with a rakish wink, and Sansa looks back with equal parts concern and fascination- “but I thought blue might be best on you.”  
  
He hands her the silken garment and nearly laughs at the ginger way that she handles the fabric. He’d had to guess at her size, but he realized with a lurch in his stomach that it would not be a difficult task- _she’s built almost exactly the same as Cersei at her age. _  
  
She opens her mouth to speak, and he can tell from her expression that the words will be ones of protest, so he cuts her off before she can begin-   
  
“You’re a well-bred lady, Sansa. I’m sure you won’t insult me by refusing to wear my gift, will you?”  
  
Sansa scowls and sighs, but she murmurs her thanks.   
  
That evening, she enters the dining chamber swathed in blue silk. He’d been correct in his color choice- the cerulean matches her eyes, and her hair gleams like licks of flame against it. The thin material clings to her hips, dips in at her waist, scoops low over the swell of her bosom and the blades of her shoulders.   
  
She quickly turns her attention to the boys, interrupting Rickon’s savage hacking to instruct him on the proper way to cut his meat, listening intently to Tommen as he tells of the family of tortoises he found on the beach this morning. Jaime watches her all the while, only breaking the stare when he notices a small hand creeping onto his dish and stealing the choicest cuts of his own meat. He shifts his gaze in Rickon’s direction, but he’s several moments too late; the child has already vanished under the table, where a satisfied Shaggydog wags his tail, the heavy pendulum of fur and muscle thwacking hard against Jaime’s legs.  
  
He rather expects Sansa to scold her brother for his behavior, or to at least order Shaggydog out of the room. But her face only twitches with merriment, and soon she begins to laugh- a sweet, girlish laugh. At her side, Tommen giggles, and the sound of his son’s laughter immediately dissolves Jaime’s irritation.  
  
When Rickon emerges from beneath the table, his round little cheeks glistening with grease and his smile completely unrepentant, Jaime only ruffles his hair and passes him a sweetcake. 

* * *

“Are you my mother?”  
  
Rickon asks the question as abruptly as he ever asks anything- in spite of her best efforts, her brother persists on speaking too loudly and too forcefully, whether he’s asking for a second sugar biscuit or demanding that Tommen come and play with the strange little figurines he’s crafted out of fabric scraps and string.   
  
Shaggydog trots alongside his master, and both child and wolf fix Sansa with penetrating, demanding stares.  
  
She drops the lute she’s been tuning- Jaime bought it for her several days ago, and while she knows that she must tell him to stop bringing her gifts, she can’t bear to reject something so beautiful- and swallows the lump forming in her throat before she shakes her head at Rickon.  
  
“No, Rickon. I’m your sister...don’t you remember?”  
  
The boy furrows his brow and narrows his eyes, taking several steps closer to Sansa’s chair. “I don’t believe you,” he barks, his hand clenching in Shaggydog’s fur. Sansa braces herself for a tantrum- they’re less frequent than they once were, but his rages can still come upon him quite suddenly- but Rickon only stares harder at her and tilts his head before repeating his question in precisely the same tone as before.   
  
She wants to grab his shoulders and shake him, shake him until he remembers their beautiful lady mother and their strong lord father. _But he doesn’t remember. He truly doesn’t._   
  
Tommen’s voice calls out from the doorway- “I keep trying to tell him that you aren’t his mother, but he doesn’t listen.” The blonde boy shuffles into the chamber, his cat tucked under one arm, green eyes filled with exasperation.   
  
“Shut up!” Rickon screams, clapping his hands over his ears and whirling about to face Tommen. “You’re wrong, you big fat stupid! You don’t know anything!”   
  
Tommen’s cheeks flush pink, but, to Sansa’s surprise, he does not flee from the room. Instead, he places Ser Pounce down on a chair and kneels in front of Rickon, waiting for the little boy to uncover his ears.   
  
“Do you want to go down to the shore, Rickon?” Tommen asks- he’s clearly noticed how easily Rickon can be distracted.   
  
Rickon furrows his brow in a moment of thought before nodding. “Can we get pomegranates?”  
  
Sansa gives Tommen a handful of coin and a firm instruction to stay out of the main marketplace- the last time she let the boys venture out alone, Rickon had gleefully announced that he saw five naked ladies wrestling with a fat man. Sansa had gaped in horror, even as Jaime laughed and Tommen blushed.   
  
She smiles at the former King now, brushing her hand over his golden curls. “You be careful now.”  
  
Tommen straightens his shoulders, his chest puffing out a bit with pride as he answers, “I’ll watch over him. Don’t worry.”   
  
Once the boys cross the threshold of the pavilion (leaving Shaggydog behind; indulgent as she can be at times, Sansa still insists on that much), Sansa sinks down onto a pouf in the corner, her back stooped, her elbows on her knees.   
  
Under other circumstances, she might have felt proud- she’s done her best to care for her feral little brother, nurturing and gentling and scolding and soothing like a mother should. It’s a testament to her hard work that he thinks of her this way- but then she remembers the way their mother held baby Rickon in her arms, nursing him at her own breasts against the advice of Maester Luwin, holding his hands as he took his first steps, tending his scrapes and rocking him to sleep.   
  
_And he’ll remember none of it._   
  
The thought drives a sharp pain into her heart, and she wraps her arms around her knees, taking advantage of her temporary solitude to indulge in a good cry.

* * *

Jaime looks up at the rippling of the entry curtains; none of the chambers in the pavilion have proper doors, just these gauzy drapes to separate them from the open passageways. He flashes a smile at the sight of plump pink fingers and round green eyes before calling out, “Come in, Tommen.”  
  
The boy shuffles into Jaime’s bedchamber, a peculiar heaviness in his carriage. He doesn’t seem upset, exactly- more uncertain and anxious. His toes point inward as he stands in the threshold, and his shifts his weight from one foot to the other.  
  
“Is everything well?” Jaime inquires.   
  
Tommen takes two tiny steps into the room before speaking. His tone is so quiet that Jaime must strain to hear, but the question is unmistakable. “Why did you do it, Uncle Jaime? You, and...and Mother...why?”  
  
A hard pressure pushes at Jaime’s stomach, and he feels the air fleeing his lungs. Tommen watches him, eyes so expectant- when Jaime is able to form words again, he can think of only one thing to say:  
  
“I loved her. We loved each other.”  
  
It isn’t a satisfactory answer, and he knows it. Tommen worries his lower lip between his teeth before he asks, “Do you still love her?”  
  
Jaime responds with words that he’s said to himself countless times, that he’s repeated to Cersei over and over. But for the first time, it feels like a confession. “I’ll love her until the day I die.”   
  
He cannot tell if Tommen is relieved or disgusted by this answer. He stays silent for several excruciating moments before he mumbles-  
  
“Joff and Myrcella, too?”  
  
Jaime nods, and Tommen sniffs through his nose.  
  
“Joff knew, I think. People would say things to him, but he didn’t believe them...he’d just get angry.” A glistening appears in Tommen’s eyes, and Jaime prays to all the gods he no longer believes in that the boy will hold his tears down. “Myrcella would have been angry. I don’t think she ever knew.”  
  
“Are you angry?”  
  
Tommen shrugs. “I thought my father was dead. I suppose I ought to be glad that he isn’t.” The flatness of his tone is more devastating than if he’d shouted. “Would you ever have told me, if I hadn’t asked?”  
  
Jaime desperately wants to say yes, to tell Tommen that he’d never wanted anything more than to claim him as his own son. But it would be a lie, and after all of the deceptions and falsehoods, he cannot bear to add another.  
  
“No.”  
  
The word echoes through the airy chamber. Tommen’s lower lip trembles- Jaime’s heart contracts-, but the boy turns on his heel and hides his face from view.  
  
He murmurs something about going to check on Rickon before hastening out of Jaime’s chamber.   
  
Jaime knows that he should stop him, should hold him tight and look into his eyes and say _something_-  
  
He lets Tommen go.


	3. Chapter Three

She rarely ventures out to the marketplace alone. Tommen and Rickon enjoy the stroll from the pavilion to the village center, and she certainly doesn’t mind the extra sets of hands to help her carry wares and supplies back to the house (or, rather, the extra _ set _of hands- Rickon seldom proves helpful where such tasks are concerned, preferring to dart through the market stalls and aggravate the shopkeepers by rearranging their merchandise, discovering appealing hiding spots beneath their tables, and inundating them with a barrage of peculiar, unanswerable questions). 

But she can’t deny the pleasurable freedom that comes from strolling the avenues without any wayward young boys to mind. She has the opportunity to fully peruse the spice vendor’s offerings, to select the finest produce from the greengrocer, and to allow the cobbler to properly fit her for a new pair of leather sandals.

As she pauses by a fragrance stall, smiling as the perfumer dabs essence of myrrh on her pulse points, she’s abruptly startled by a rough hand resting firmly on the small of her back. Her head whips about; a man, bearded and dark-haired and clad in brocaded silk robes, grins back brightly, his fingers massaging the tight knots forming below her shoulderblades. 

Her understanding of the Lysene tongue still doesn’t even approach mastery. However, she’s quite confident in her comprehension of the man’s whispered comment-

“Such a beauty. How much, beautiful girl?”

Eyes wide, jaw agape, Sansa allows the implications to fully settle into the nooks and crannies of her mind- _ he thinks me a concubine _. Perhaps she had taken more liberties than she should with her attire selection today; Lysene women of every social strata wear breezy silks and limb-bearing cuts, but this particular ensemble- selected by Jaime, of course, just like the bulk of her wardrobe- features a diaphanous skirt and a bodice made of just a few fabric bands draped over her breasts and fastened with a knot behind her neck, leaving her clavicle and stomach completely exposed. A hot flush slathers itself over her bare skin, a panicked bulb lodging in her throat, shame spurring the rise of damp beads of perspiration, gathering at her hairline and in the curves of her neck-

And then a voice, low and firm, speaking shaky Lysene in a thick Westerosi accent-

“I’ll thank you to unhand my wife.”

Jaime’s golden hair and golden skin glitter in her peripherals as he strides behind her, knocking the dark-haired man’s arm away from Sansa’s body, instantly replacing it with his own. Questions push at her lips- _ how long have you been in the marketplace? What did you see? What do you _ ** _think_ ** _ you saw?- _but they rapidly dissolve as Jaime tenses his muscles and she feels their hard, powerful pressure against her yielding skin. 

The man murmurs something about a misunderstanding as he pivots on his heel and skulks toward the promenade. And yet, Jaime makes no haste to unwrap his arm from her waist; she feels herself graining closer to his body, compelled by the heat, the scent of salt and musk-

“Your wife, am I?” she hears herself ask, inwardly wincing at the false levity of her tone. Jaime’s lips quirk upward into a crooked grin as he replies-

“Apologies, my lady. It seemed the easiest way to discourage that fool’s sloppy approach.” Her pulse accelerates as he softly sweeps his palm over the curve of her hip before releasing her from his grasp entirely and leaning over at the waist to retrieve the shopping basket resting by her feet, threatening to topple over at the slightest provocation. He slings the basket over his right elbow and offers her his left arm- a courtly gesture that reminds her of another time, another world. “Home, then?” he asks.

She slips her hand into the bend of his elbow, keenly aware of the brush of her breasts over his upper arm as she hastens to match his pace.

* * *

In Westeros, Ser Jaime Lannister could convince himself that bodily yearnings were of little consequence. He kept himself pure for all but Cersei, he could cleave to the promises implied by his Kingsguard oaths...temptations of the flesh held little sway, little power, little importance.

But he’s in Essos now, and in this distant land, “Ser Jaime Lannister” doesn’t exist. He’s naught but a man, a weak man, a lonely man surrounded by bright colors and intoxicating aromas and feminine curves, the undulations of full hips guiding him like a pendulum down streets and through atriums, silken locks of black and silver and ochre gleaming like gemstones in the hot Lysene sun, brilliant and beautiful and alluring-

(But none shine so bright as the ruby curls spilling down Sansa’s white back, teasing the incline of her waist, exquisite and robust and forbidden…)

_ I’m not Jaime Lannister anymore, _he recites to himself as he makes the surreptitious journey to the pleasure house. Perhaps if he repeats the sentiment again and again, if he fills each crevice of his mind with the words...perhaps they’ll begin to feel true. There’d be a comfort to that, a new existence as a man with no name, no reputation, no legacy. This man knows nothing of heartbreak, and to him, “love” and “fucking” can be easily separated. This man won’t hesitate to hire a whore to serve his needs. He’ll hand over a fistful of silver pieces, he’ll accept the madam’s courteous smile, and he’ll select a girl...no muss, no fuss.

(He’s surprised to find an odd pleasure in the straightforward, transactional nature of it all, and he recalls a comment of Tyrion’s, made so long ago- “It’s simple. It’s business. Nothing more, nothing less.”)

He surveys the young women gathered in the atrium and nearly tells the madam that he’ll take the curvaceous lass with thick golden curls...but the idea twists his gut until he fears he’ll be sick in the marble fountain. And so he instead requests a tall girl with fair skin and henna-rinsed hair.

The girl doesn’t speak the Common Tongue, and he feels no inclination to stumble through a tedious conversation in clumsy Lysene for the sake of politeness. His hand immediately lowers to pull at the ties of his trousers, and the girl swiftly loosens her flimsy gown, allowing the cheap silk to pool at her feet. Long, white lines, speckles of sunspots, full breasts with pretty pink peaks…

(He thinks of the way _ her _ breasts brushed his arm in the marketplace, her body so soft and delicate, her eyes so sweet, so innocent…)

He heaves a sigh of relief when the girl sinks to her knees. His left hand slides into her thatch of curly hair...but the color isn’t quite right. There’s an orangey hue from the henna that quite interrupts the fantasy, and the texture is drier, coarser…

But when he narrows his eyes until she’s nothing but a blur of red and white, he can focus on the suction of her cheeks, the way her tongue traces the underside of his cock and teases the head, the calm manner with which she endures the clenching of his hand in her hair as he fucks her mouth. 

The nausea returns to his belly, taking up residence in his lower stomach, and he resigns himself to the fact that he’ll inevitably vomit on the walk back to the pavilion. But he shunts those concerns to the side and indulges himself in a low groan as he shoots his seed down the redhaired girl’s accommodating throat.

* * *

They spread a blanket on the soft sand outside the pavilion and stare up at the stars- Sansa, Rickon and Shaggydog. Rickon wedges his tiny body between that of his enormous wolf and that of his sister; the milky fragrance so particular to small children clings to his skin and hair, and Sansa moves her face close to him to breathe it in.

She tried to persuade Tommen to join them, but he’s been in such a peculiar temper lately- he retreats to his bedchambers immediately after evening meal, accepting only Ser Pounce as company. Should it continue much longer, Sansa will surely speak to Tommen and try to discover what troubles him…but she knows from regrettable experience that solitude can be hardest to come by when it is truly needed. If Tommen needs the quiet, she will not be the one to begrudge him.

Rickon grasps her hand, squeezing with surprising strength for a child so young, and commands: “Show me more.”

And so she adjusts their hands until Rickon’s forefinger points outward, then helps him trace the constellations. She struggles to remember- it’s been many years since Uncle Benjen showed them the stars, and they’re so much farther south now; the positions are different from what she recalls. But even so, she manages to find the Crab, the Serpent, the Great Wheel-

Before long, Rickon’s wrist goes limp, his head goes heavy, and a trickle of drool drips onto her shoulder as his snores ring loud and robust in her left ear. Shaggydog sleeps as soundly as his master (and his snores are still louder)- Sansa thinks to move them inside, but it’s a beautiful night, and the stars are so powerfully bright, so painfully clear-

She scarcely notices Jaime’s approach. He takes some time to settle down on the blanket beside her; she hears the creaking of stiff muscles, and she nearly asks whether his back still troubles him- but he so hates reminders of his advancing age, and she’s in no mood for pouts or grumbles or thinly-veiled insults.

“It’s well past his bedtime,” Jaime says as he kicks off his unlaced boots and buries his toes in the sand. "What are you doing out here so late?“

“I was showing him the stars.” She still holds Rickon’s hand, and she lifts it toward the air, circling The Great Wheel with his plump finger. “He wanted to see the pictures in the sky.”

“Do you know them all?”

“Not all…but I didn’t forget as much as I’d feared.”

“My Uncle Gerion showed them to me when I was a boy.” Sansa blinks her surprise; Jaime so rarely speaks of the past, whether distant or recent. Whenever such topics arise, his face grows tense and his eyes grow cold…but there’s nothing but a wistful smile as he raises his left arm and traces a pattern. "The Serpent. I remember that one.“

"That’s not The Serpent. That’s The Ship.” She’s startled by her own terseness, but Jaime only replies with a hoarse chuckle. 

“Oh?” He extends his arm to her, his forefinger still pointed. "Well, Little Lord Rickon might be asleep, but it seems that your lessons are not quite over. Show me.“

Sansa gingerly wraps her hand around Jaime’s wrist, and as she guides his finger over to the correct location of The Serpent, she hopes against hope that he shan’t feel the way her fingers tremble.

“It’s here,” she whispers. His smile widens as he uses his fingertip to sketch The Serpent on his own..she still holds his wrist, and he’s so close...if she allows her head to fall just slightly to the side, her cheek will pillow itself into the curve between his neck and shoulder. It’s an alluring idea, and she feels her body clench with desire…

...and then he shifts a bit nearer, her face cushioned by his warm skin, her lips brushing his pulse point. 

(Quite by accident. Of course.)


	4. Chapter Four

He’s not sure what compels him to purchase the training swords. Surely not an urgent desire to teach the lads how to adequately defend themselves; fugitives they may be, but they’ve experienced no real threats to their safety since their arrival in Essos. 

_ Perhaps a desire for father-son bonding _ , he briefly considers...but he knows in the marrow of his bones that he’s never wished for such a connection. Not with Joffrey, not with Myrcella, not with Tommen _ . My seed, not my son _, he often thinks to himself, using the fragile distinction as a flimsy but necessary shield.

And even if he_ did _ feel inclined to treat Tommen as a father would a son, he can’t recall a single instance of his own father playing in the fields with him during his childhood. The grooms and stablehands, the knights and masters-at-arms, his Uncle Tygett and Uncle Gerion...but never Tywin Lannister.

Whatever his motivations, he returns to the pavilion with the play weaponry in tow and immediately sets to work, transforming the center courtyard into a makeshift training field. He’s embarrassed by the swell of pride that causes him to straighten his posture and curve his lips into a smile- _ it’s amazing, what you’ll cling to when you live a purposeless life. _

_ Not quite purposeless, _he reminds himself as he calls for Rickon and Tommen to join him outside. These boys, the former King of the Seven Kingdoms and the rightful Lord of Winterfell...they depend on him, on a disgraced, one-handed knight, for survival, for protection. 

(And so does the fair young maiden standing in the gallery above the courtyard, face illuminated by an indulgent smile as she watches the little lads gather and accept the swords Jaime places in their hands. She’s a beacon, blinding white and rich red..._ my last chance for honor _…)

Tommen takes his training sword in hand with reluctance. Jaime tilts his head in a desperate effort to catch sight of the boy’s eyes, hoping to see a gleam of interest, an ardent fascination in the art of swordplay, in his birth father’s one true talent. But still, that hesitation...Jaime approaches him cautiously with gentle parries and easy advances, but Tommen just shies away, jogging backwards, trying to dart and duck, ultimately dropping his sword in the dust when Jaime’s forward thrust takes him by surprise.

Disappointment settles heavily upon Jaime’s shoulders, and he chides himself for it- _ you’ve no right to expect _ ** _anything_ ** _ from him. _But Rickon still stands outside the training circle, twisting his sword in his hands and fidgeting restlessly, his direwolf uttering anxious whimpers to mirror his master’s frustration. And so Jaime turns from Tommen and gestures to Rickon, his eyebrows lifting with surprise as the boy barrels onto the training field, teeth and blade bared, a wild, brutal energy engulfing his tiny body. He lacks any training or precision, but the ferocity is there, and a flutter of delight moves through Jaime’s chest as he spars with Rickon, shouting instructions as he and his small opponent circle each other (most of which Rickon chooses to ignore). 

As he and Rickon fence, he spots Sansa through his peripheral vision, descending from the gallery and striding over to Tommen. She says something to him, words Jaime can’t quite hear, and her small hand rests on his shoulder as she guides him toward the stables. Jaime moves to the opposite side of the field, which allows him a full view of Sansa and Tommen attending to the wild pony Sansa saw fit to adopt. It’s a stubborn, irritable thing, but the pony clearly responds better to Tommen than it ever has to him or Sansa; she helps Tommen saddle the creature, and when the little blond boy hoists himself onto his mount, Jaime is surprised and impressed by the straight, clean lines of his posture, the ease with which he calms the horse and guides him into even, galloping circuits. 

_ We all have our talents, _he reflects with a grin, which quickly morphs into a wince as Rickon forcefully jabs his play sword into Jaime’s solar plexus.

* * *

Since early childhood, she’s been called “beautiful” far more times than she cares to remember. Little Sansa equated “beauty” with “acceptability”, and a relief washed over her each time a septa or a visiting noble praised her wide blue eyes or her lustrous auburn hair. _ And then, there was the Queen. _ When the most stunning woman in the Seven Kingdoms called young Sansa Stark of Winterfell a beauty, the girl felt certain that she’d never again ascend to such heights, that she’d never again receive such exquisite praise. 

But when Queen Cersei’s handsome golden twin cradles her shoulder in his left hand, leaning closer than is appropriate and whispering “You look beautiful tonight” in a tremulous, awkward tone...she suddenly feels compelled to reevaluate.

She often asks him to walk with her along the waterfront, once the boys are abed and the pavilion falls silent. She slips her hand into the crook of his arm and they stroll, rarely venturing to break the quiet with clumsy efforts at conversation. The sunset enflames his fair hair, and she’s certain that her own tresses glow vermilion...he calls her beautiful, and she’s enraptured by the movement of his lips beneath his beard, and suddenly, she can’t think of a good reason _ not _ to do what she so powerfully wants to do…

Jaime doesn’t immediately respond when she drapes her arms over his shoulders and brushes her lips across his. In a single, terrifying instant, she can’t quite tell whether the delay comes from confusion or disgust, and she feels a hot swell of shame stoking a vibrant, stinging fire in her cheeks and ears-

But then he bends his knees and wraps her waist in a tight embrace, his mouth excruciatingly gentle as it moves over her own- lips never parting, tongue never seeking entry, everything sweet and delicate-

(_ Juvenile. Childish _. Harsh words knock at the back of her skull, and she’s not sure where they originate, but she’d gladly chase them away to give herself the freedom to enjoy his closeness, these caresses, the stuff of a guileless maid’s imaginings. She hasn’t been guileless in many moons, in many years...but the yearnings still persist.)

His hands remain motionless against her back, never seeking to explore her body...she remembers the man in the marketplace, how determined he’d been to touch the swaths of skin left exposed by her barely-present clothing...and then, she remembers the firmness of Jaime’s arm around her waist, how she’d thought of him that night in her chambers, her fingers dancing over her sex as she recalled the press of his body, the scent of his skin-

When he leans back to break their kiss and take a breath, she seizes the chance to rise up on tiptoe and burrow her face into the crook of his neck, reveling in his fragrance, the taste of saline slicking her lips as she presses them to the side of his throat, again and again and again.

His left hand clenches at the small of her back, and a warm pulse stirs between her legs as the tip of her tongue sweeps a circle over his skin.

* * *

He watches her sometimes, investing hours in his wordless observations. As she sweeps through the pavilion, straightening chambers and ushering Tommen and Rickon into study chambers for private instruction by tutors and governesses (a painful expense, to be sure...but her arguments in favor of formal education came with limpid eyes and a flushing bosom, so what could he do but agree?), he tracks her steps, marvelling at the ease with which she’s settled into this strange new life.

It’s a terrible habit, his tendency to elevate the women in his life to absurd, unattainable heights, to hold them responsible for standards that they’ve never accepted or even understood. But she’s radiant, a pure creature of light, untouched by man, unspoiled by the cruel world’s constant efforts to break her and soil her-

And that’s why, when he finally persuades her to follow him to the far end of the pavilion and join him in his bedchamber, he forces himself to observe the utmost restraint. He makes no effort to disrobe her, keeping his hand determinedly positioned above her waist (but not _ too _ high, no where close to the curve of her breasts). He recalls the way he and Cersei used to touch each other as very young adolescents, before he truly claimed her (before _ she _ truly claimed _ him _...but then, she claimed him at the moment of their birth, and he’d never tried to evade her thrall). 

The girl’s kiss, light and insubstantial as the flap of a moth’s wings. He feels an urgent burning in his lower belly, the threat of hardened desire straining in his groin- but he withholds, angling his manhood far from the curve of her hips, giving her nothing but the whispered caresses she seems to prefer. 

But when he bestows yet another half-kiss on her swollen mouth and she responds by nipping his lower lip between her teeth, he finds himself wondering whether this facade of innocence and purity is truly for her benefit...or for his own. 

  



	5. Chapter Five

When she steps outside herself to fully examine the creature she’s become, she can’t avoid the hard, cold bulge of fear plunging into her gut. _ Mother would be so ashamed. _

Catelyn Stark never raised her daughter to swan about an open-air pavilion with only flimsy scraps of silk and gossamer to conceal her nakedness. Catelyn Stark wouldn’t approve of lounging on a veranda and sipping chilled honeyed wine in the height of the afternoon, dropping into brief, luxurious dozes whenever the desire strikes. And Catelyn Stark would gape with unabashed horror, should she see her sweet Sansa cleaving her body to that of a man not her husband, a man old enough to be her sire, a _ Lannister _ man with so much blood on his hands (his _ hand _) that she marvels that it doesn’t turn permanently scarlet-

The girl who chooses these actions is no lady, and Sansa feels concerned and confused by the relief that this conclusion brings. 

She shares Ser Jaime’s bed now, more often than not. He claimed the most scenic chamber for himself (_ there’s still selfishness there, for all he tries to chase it away… _ ), a sizable room with enormous arched windows directly facing the ocean and a bed spacious enough to fit an entire family. It’s hard to discern whether he truly welcomes her there; he smiles and gentles, but a nagging voice screeches between her ears- _ perhaps he’s only indulging you, as he does Rickon’s nattering or Tommen’s sulking. _

And yet, in spite of the possibility for distance, Jaime holds her close when he drifts off to sleep, his arms coiled around her waist, his golden hand pushing hard into the soft flesh of her stomach.

The intimacy of these shared quarters- awakening to find her legs entwined with another’s, knowing how his muscles feel in absolute repose- strikes a flint in her heart, burning and smoldering with an unfamiliar heat, with an unprecedented urgency. 

But still, he does not_ really _ touch. Nothing beyond perfunctory pats and tender embraces and chaste kisses, all reminding her of nothing so much as the silly, giggling pecks she’d given Robb and Jon and Theon when they were children playing at knights and maidens. 

_ He does not see me as a woman. He does not _ ** _want_ ** _ me as a man wants a woman. _ These ideas torment her more than they should; she racks the archives of her mind, trying to discover an explanation, any explanation at all... _ I’m not as beautiful as everyone claims. I’m not as beautiful as he wants...as he feels he deserves… _

(_I’m not as beautiful as _**_her._** This last notion sears and screams, refusing to be cast aside, refusing to dim its vivid, blinding truth.)

She understands the meaning of the tension rising between her legs, when he accidentally brushes the back of his hand over the side of her breast or cants his hips too close to her rear. She’s starved, parched, gasping for love..._ no, not love _ . _ For connection. For completion, even if it’s just a facade. _

As she strolls the dusty marketplace paths during the day, she angles herself into the doorways of pleasure houses, sometimes sidling up to the exterior walls and peering through windows to catch sight of frantic couplings. Men and women, men and other men, sometimes women and other women...merging. Fusing. Finding satisfaction in each other’s bodies, however transient, however temporary.

She’d been astonished to tiptoe up to the most prestigious brothel in Lys and peek through a street-facing window, only to see Jaime bending a redhaired girl over a cushioned divan, his hips pistoning into her at an alarming pace, his hand knotted in her (obviously dyed, unpleasantly orange) hair. She only captured the briefest glimpse of the girl’s face; she stared ahead and blinked in rhythm, appearing rather bored with the entire experience. And there had been such strain in Jaime’s face, beads of sweat gathering on his hairline, every limb taut and tight, so strangely determined to deprive himself of even this slight succor.

Her wispy silk dress suddenly felt oppressive against her hardening nipples, and she lamented the public nature of this viewing; she wanted nothing more than to cup herself through her gown and ease the ache…

...the ache so similar to the one creeping into her sex right now. 

She knows what she wants from him, but hasn’t the slightest idea how to ask. This doesn’t resemble “courting” in the slightest- it’s his body she craves, his strength, his implied ability to make her forget all that came before, to turn her into someone new. 

(A stupid girl’s fancy, nowhere near the reasonable thoughts expected of a female head of household, of the defacto “mother” figure to two young boys…)

He sleeps now, but she can tell that it’s only the shallow, early phases of nocturnal rest; his face twitches with each breath of fresh air wafting in through the open window, and he smiles when she nuzzles her nose into the crook of his shoulder. 

The moment her teeth scrape over his collarbone, his eyes snap open (just as she knew they would). She’s tried to startle him before with sudden nips to the lips during their closed-mouth kisses, but this is a new brazenness, and he clearly can’t decide how to react…

And so she gives him little opportunity to question. She rolls atop him, her knees bracketing his hips, her hands pressing into the pillow beneath his head. She’s not quite confident about her approach when she fuses her mouth to his (_ I only know childish kissing games and Joffrey’s wormy lips and that one true, wild kiss from Sandor… _), but she allows her instincts to guide her, to urge her to suck hard on his lower lip before her tongue muscles past all barriers and determinedly massages his own. 

The moonlight settles in his irises, mingling with confusion and desire and a tiny hint of panic-

He’s kissing her back, and she welcomes that reality, casting aside the concerns that suddenly seem so fleeting, so unimportant.

* * *

After spending a night with Sansa in his arms, Jaime can taste her on his lips all day long.

Well, not _ her _, of course. He’s considered it, wondering what it would be like to kiss between her white thighs and feel her slickness coating his mouth. Would she taste as Cersei did, or altogether different? The thought feels equally like a fantasy and a quandary, and he has yet to find an adequate balance for his guilt and his burgeoning, persistent lust. 

No, what he tastes is the fragranced oil she smoothes over her face, with notes of lavender and rosemary and a hint of juniper. He tastes the salt of her perspiration when it gathers in the hollow of her throat and the valleys of her collarbone. She likes to drink chilled orange and hibiscus tea before retiring for the night, and now that he gives himself permission to kiss her with an open mouth, he’s gifted with those flavors as well.

(_ Fruit and flowers _ . Cersei smelled and tasted of lemons and rosewater, and after they made love, he’d wait as long as possible to visit the baths, wanting to keep her essence around him, to breathe her in, to feel her everywhere. It hurts to remember those halcyon times; he left Westeros as only half a soul, surrendering her to her ambitions. He took Tommen for her sake more than for the boy’s own; she’d want her son to survive, even with a sea to separate them. The Queen Regent must tear down the Tyrell thorn bushes and steel her kingdom against the approach of dragonfire all on her own, there’s naught else he can do for her....and if that fact spurs his stomach to constant nausea, if that hopelessness makes the lonely nights impossible to bear...then the girl’s presence in his bed can’t _ really _ be his fault.)

He takes his leave of her in the open passageway outside his bedchamber door, leaving a whisper of a kiss on her plush lips and another below her right ear. She strides toward her own chamber with sprightly steps and a ripe, pleasing flush on her cheeks and neck, and as he pivots on his heel, the tip of his tongue collecting traces of her taste, he’s startled to see Tommen leaning against a nearby wall, blue-green eyes narrowed and arms tightly crossed over his chest.

“I know what you and Sansa are doing,” the boy hisses, pique clinging to each syllable. When Jaime lifts his brows in a silent question, Tommen continues: “We’ve lived here for some time now...I see what happens, what men and women do together...Rickon calls it ‘wrestling’, but Rickon’s just a child. I know what it really is.”

If Tommen didn’t look so distressed, Jaime would be amused by his determination to separate himself from “children” like Rickon; _ so a boy of nine is a grown adult now? _ And then, he remembers that he’d become a squire only one year after his tenth nameday... _ children don’t remain children for very long. _

“It isn’t what you think, Tommen,” he sniffs in response. And it’s true enough; he has yet to compromise her virtue and yank her down from the pinnacle of purity on which he keeps her displayed. _ I only rescue maidens. If I take her innocence, I’ll destroy my purpose...and then, I’ll be an oathbreaker in earnest. _

(He tries to keep from thinking of Brienne, but she creeps her way into his imaginings and his reminiscences, regardless of his best efforts. On his darkest days, he allows himself to consider what she'd do, what she’d say about his attempts to “protect” Sansa Stark and her wild brother, the last of Lady Catelyn’s brood...but that pressure drills into his temples until he can scarcely see, so he seeks to chase it away by any possible means.)

Tommen neither accepts nor scorns his claim. Instead, he takes a single step closer, his wide eyes glistening (_ very much as Brienne’s once did _) as he quietly utters: “Please don’t do her harm, Uncle Jaime.”

He’s not sure whether it’s the fragility of his tone or his stubborn use of the “Uncle” honorific or his shining eyes or the condemnation in his request, but something about the encounter pierces the membrane of Jaime’s heart, stinging so sharply that he briefly wonders whether he’s been taken by some dangerous medical spell. He draws a laborious breath through his nose and offers Tommen nothing in response but a series of deep, erratic nods as he hastens down the corridor and bursts into the courtyard, staggering to the fountain and plunging his face into the murky water. The cool dampness refreshes and reinvigorates...but it fails to wash anything clean.

He knows that Sansa will come to his chambers that night, just as she always does. But he decides against providing an explanation before hefting his armoire into his curtained doorway to block her entry, pretending not to hear the rejected defeat in her voice as she stands in the hallway and softly calls his name. 

* * *

He’s chosen to keep her away, but she knows that she need do nothing but wait.

These bizarre tempers come upon Jaime sometimes, and he’ll sequester himself in his chambers or wander the streets of Lys, spending his hours far from his strange little “family”. Tommen accepts Jaime’s isolated periods as inevitable, while Rickon takes them terribly personally, fussing and fidgeting and demanding to know why his swordplay partner won’t join him on the field. Even Shaggydog lopes around the pavilion in a morose state, howling and whimpering at Jaime’s door when the knight refuses to emerge from his room.

But Sansa understands that it will all end in the fullness of time. _ He cannot bear to be alone...not for long. _

He’s particularly precious with her when he finally allows her back in his bed, letting only the very tips of his fingers trace her cheek and jaw and neck, peppering the most ephemeral pecks on her brow and temples, avoiding her lips entirely. _ Just wait _, she reminds herself, even as her frustration simmers in her sex, threatening to rise to a full, rolling boil-

When he finally kisses her on the mouth, she slides her fingers into his hair, scraping her fingernails over his scalp as her tongue mingles with his own. After these nights of separation, she won’t be mollified by sweet, gentle, meaningless gestures- she wants his weight over her, in her, casting Westerosi Sansa into the sea and allowing Lysene Sansa to rise to the surface.

She unlaces her sheer dress and drops it to the floor. His eyes widen at the sight of her bare white skin, and she’s slightly annoyed by the reverence with which he kisses down her neck and allows his lips to linger in the space between her breasts, like a supplicant would do to an idol at prayer.

He doesn’t stop her when she reaches for the laces of his trousers, and his handsome face brightens with a half-smile when she can’t conceal a gasp at the sight and feel of his stiff member. But when she tries to position him between her legs after a few undoubtedly-awkward strokes of his cock, he angles back with a shake of his head.

  
“Should we return to Westeros, you’ll want to keep your maidenhead…” His words trail off, losing conviction with each passing moment, and she forces herself to restrain an eyeroll as she captures his face between her hands and says:

“Even if we do return, even if we swear to my continued maidenhood...who will believe it, after all this time?”

She doesn’t quite realize the truth in this statement until she speaks it aloud. But there’s no question...she’s been living abroad with a man not her husband, in a land with no care for modesty and propriety…

_ ...no decent man would take me to wife now. _

(Of course, she conveniently leaves her still-existing marriage to Tyrion out of these reflections. She doesn’t need another deterrent, another wind seeking to change her decided course of action.)

“Please,” she breathes into his mouth, and he quickly complies.

It stings just a little, but nothing close to the agonizing pain she’d imagined as a young maid hearing tell of “first beddings”. And it ends far more rapidly than she expects (based on the petulant frown creasing his face after he spends inside her, it concluded more quickly than he thought, too). But there’s pleasure to the warmth of his skin and the secure way he holds her to his chest, and she’s willing to accept that much for now.


	6. Chapter Six

Rickon first draws blood on a hot and humid afternoon, the sunlight catching in the red liquid seeping through Jaime’s tunic until it glares a vivid shade of scarlet. Amazement weakens his left-handed grasp on his own sword, shame settling in the base of his stomach at his own naivety. The child asked whether they could swap the bulky practice swords for actual weapons, and Jaime hadn’t seen any cause for worry- the blades they’d wield were dull beyond usefulness, and that hopeful gleam in Rickon’s blue eyes looked so like the one that occasionally sets Sansa’s gaze alight…

_ Give the lad a thrill. No harm in that. _But the moment Rickon clenched his hand around the sword handle, his expression shifted; an iron gravity held his jaw in place, an exhilarated flush turned his cheeks vermilion...and the eyes, the beautiful, deathly glitter in those wide, youthful eyes-

(He remembers how his heart thrummed, the very first time he slashed a blade across another trainee’s forearm. That delicious risk, that warm satisfaction..._ he’ll have a taste for it now, _Jaime reflects, and he’s not sure whether the idea fills him with concern or with something resembling paternal pride. Based on the ill fit of these emotions, the way they chafe and pucker and shift, forcing him into a state of mind that feels wholly unnatural, he suspects the latter.)

When Jaime finally stills the boy’s hand and tells him to relinquish the blade, Rickon resists, tightening his grasp and baring his teeth in an alarming, animalistic snarl. The direwolf instantly leaps to attention, mimicking Rickon’s aggressive stance and moving in Jaime’s direction with quick, purposeful, predatory steps. Through his peripherals, Jaime can see red blood stains bordering Shaggydog’s mouth; he’d caught a stray cat earlier and mutilated the poor creature, and Jaime went to significant trouble to bury the ravaged corpse before Tommen could see the carnage. Normally, Rickon will gesture to his great beast and stop the animal’s progress before he ventures too close to another person…

...but the child is clearly enraged by Jaime’s efforts to keep him from causing further injury with his sword, and so he’s in no haste to curtail his wolf’s instincts. Jaime feels his heart rattling against his breastbone, pushing up into his throat...fear mingles with the irresistible seduction of true danger, and although he’s now a man of middle years with a creased brow and strands of silver weaving through his hair, he’s still enthralled by this vigor, the hot rush of blood coursing through every vein, _ alive, I feel alive- _

Jaime tightens his grasp on Rickon’s wrist, locking his green eyes on the child’s blue ones. The direwolf begins to rear up on his hind legs, his fangs still fully exposed...Jaime can feel the monster’s hot, damp breath even through the fabric of his tunic... 

But then, Rickon drops his weapon and uses his free hand to shoo Shaggydog to the side. Still pouting, still fuming, his lip prominently jutted outward and his brows knitted tight together...but the child seems to take some comfort in this small bit of structure, bestowing a grudging modicum of respect upon the man who sets his boundaries, however fragile, however transient. 

He flashes a warm smile at Rickon before lifting his hand to ruffle it through the boy’s tousled curls. Rickon crinkles his nose with dismay and tosses his head free, whistling to Shaggydog and darting off toward the pavilion in search of Tommen. As he watches his blood continue to stain the thin cotton of his tunic, he also decides to retire to the pavilion, hoping that Sansa might have an herbal salve to effectively clean the small but surprisingly yielding wound. 

She does, of course. He drops his weight onto the plush settee by the window, vexed by the tautness of his muscles, the creaking of his joints. Her hands, deft and swift and comically small, pull his tunic up over his head and immediately set to work, massaging a fragrant tincture into the shallow cut slashed over his breastbone. 

“Rickon did this?” she asks with a tremor in her voice, and he’s pleased to repay her kindness and care with a long, soft, gentle stroke of her ruby tresses and the gentle smoothing of his thumb over her cheekbone. 

“Aye. Quite a lot of fight in him...he’d have made a fine knight, I think.” He utters this phrase in a chipper tone, a fledgling attempt at levity.

But Sansa’s facial expression fails to loosen; if anything, her jaw sets into a firmer position, and if he strains, he thinks he can hear her molars grinding together. 

“Bran wanted to be a knight,” she hisses through tense, thin lips, pressing her fingertips and her long nails into his wound rather more harshly than necessary.

_ She knows, but she’ll never say. I know that she knows...but I’ll never confess. _

She finishes the placement of the bandages, he takes her in his arms, and they collapse into the bed cushions. No words. No questions. Just hands and lips everywhere, both green eyes and blue eyes firmly closed.

* * *

She learns a great deal in the marketplaces of Lys, and now that she’s lived here for several moons (_ nearly a year… _), she no longer bothers to pretend that she can’t overhear the snippets of chatter from concubines and tradeswomen and nobles alike, the frank and honest talk surrounding matters of the flesh. In fact, she seeks out these discussions, particularly as her Lysene fluency improves and she’s able to gather useful information.

Nothing mesmerizes her more than the stories the women weave about “reaching their peaks”. She’d heard of this concept, of course; furtive, errant whispers in the Maidenvault, all about some mysterious, confusing desire vault stored between a woman’s legs, requiring the surest and truest of touches to bring unspeakable joy and ecstasy. As a young girl, she’d given it very little thought- _ the septas always said that a woman’s role in the marriage bed is one of duty, not of pleasure… _

But now that she’s a wanton woman of the Free Cities, living in the sin capital of Lys, spreading her legs for a wicked man of ill repute…

...perhaps it’s worth reconsidering this idea.

When she and Jaime lie together, she doesn’t experience physical pain anymore. Her body adjusts more readily than she might have anticipated, and she soon discovers that she relishes the feel of him inside her, that filling of blank spaces, that closing of yawning, fathomless chasms.

What she likes best of all is when Jaime reaches his climax while still sheathed inside her, the heat of his seed enveloping her inner chamber, the comfort of having someone else there, a piece of him remaining within, nearly enough to banish the not-so-distant memories of utter isolation and loneliness still lingering at the fringes of her mind.

Jaime doesn’t share her affinity, instead preferring to spend on her stomach or her breasts, leaving her slicked with a sticky mess that she must half-clean with a balled-up handkerchief or the corner of a bedlinen until she can properly take care of it in the baths. And, in fact, he seems quite irritated when he forgets himself enough to release in her body- irritated with himself for his lack of control, but also irritated with her for _ encouraging _ said lack. _ It’s so difficult for him to take responsibility for anything, _she’s forever reminded- a strange, sad, childish tendency, not at all befitting a man of years, a man of means, a man with a family.

(_ He doesn’t think of us as his family, _ she muses in her darker moods. _ Not even Tommen, not really. His family is who he left behind...Cersei and Tyrion and his dead father...not the living, breathing people who rely on him now _.)

“What if a child should come?” he sometimes breathes into her hair after peaking inside her, his voice tight and heavy with fear. In these moments, she always yearns to grasp his face between her hands and force him to look her in the eye as she asks in an even tone: “What if, indeed?” She’s imagined it from time to time- a child born in this free land, far from the burdens of the Seven Kingdoms, a babe with sunset hair and golden skin who speaks Lysene as a mother tongue, who never needs to fear the stigma of bastardy as it’s treated in Westeros, who’ll never know that his mother and father come from great houses with thousands of years of history and a deeply-rooted enmity. _ That wouldn’t be so terrible _, she decides…

But the panic seizing Jaime’s expression at the very idea isn’t without merit. He’s still so ill-at-ease around Tommen, still so uncomfortable with fatherhood as even a loose concept..._ until he can remain in a room with Tommen for an entire evening, carrying on a pleasant conversation, just spending time with the boy...until that happens, he has no business bringing another child into the world. _

The next evening, she’s pleased to see him enter the windowed salon overlooking the beach, where she and Tommen sit on silken floor cushions and pluck at their matching lutes. She found the instrument for him two moons past- it’s only one size smaller than the one she’d received from Jaime, and while it suited Tommen’s hands just fine at the time of purchase, she now thinks that she’ll need to hand hers off to him sooner rather than later. The boy grows like the most intrepid of vines, seeming taller and less-pudgy by the day.._ .nearly by the hour _. And, although she can serviceably recall the music lessons of her youth, at least enough to strum a few simple tunes, she hasn’t anything close to Tommen’s aptitude for the instrument. His fingers navigate the strings with incredible dexterity, maneuvering complicated chord progressions with ease as his sweet, clear, perfectly in-tune voice carries melodies beautiful enough to tighten a sentimental knot in Sansa’s throat.

As Jaime settles himself on the divan and watches Tommen with the lute, Sansa finds herself surprised by the warm glisten in his eyes, by the way he draws his lower lip between his teeth, by the occasional catch in his breath as Tommen sings or finger-picks an especially lovely musical phrase. 

“You play well,” he tells the boy when Tommen pauses for a brief respite. Tommen’s ears glow crimson at even this modest praise, and there’s no artifice to the delight in his smile as he offers Jaime his thanks. 

“I played the lute as a boy,” Jaime continues, uttering a light laugh at the astonished lift of Sansa’s eyebrows. “My mother taught me. Your grandmother Joanna...she loved music. She had fingers like yours, quick and clever and sure…”

He trails off, lost in a reverie, and she knows better than to try to retrieve him. But Tommen rises from his pillow and hesitantly rests a hand on Jaime’s shoulder, keeping it in place even as Jaime flinches. “I wish I could have known her,” Tommen replies.

And when Jaime reaches his left hand behind and wraps it around Tommen’s own, Sansa can scarcely restrain a gasp, the urge immediately returning when Jaime whispers:

“As do I, lad.”

* * *

Sansa smooths her palms over the tight muscles of his back as he kisses his way down her throat, smiling into her skin at her hums of pleasure. He takes one of her breasts in his left hand, relishing the soft weight (so soft, heavy and round and full, and he gives into his impatience, swooping his head down to capture her pink nipple between his lips and teeth). 

She fidgets beneath him as he moves his way down her abdomen, and he lowers his hands to hold her hips in place before pressing open-mouthed kisses to her belly.

He knows the taste of her now; not quite like Cersei’s, but not entirely unfamiliar- a bit of salt and musk, along with countless nuances, flavors and fragrances he can’t define, but- to his surprise- he wants to explore, to discover. If he forces himself to be honest, he doesn’t typically pay much mind to her peaks when they fuck; he thinks she may have climaxed a small handful of times, but while Cersei would demand her release (and he always knew exactly how to bring it to her), Sansa does nothing of the sort. Perhaps it’s just inexperience or uncertainty on her part, but a small, persistent voice in his head urges him to help her find true pleasure in what they do here, something beyond the shallow comfort of one body pressed to another.

He’s noticed a roundness to her stomach in recent weeks, considering it a welcome change; they’d both grown gaunt during their travels, and it pleases him to see her comfortably settled and well-fed. But as he kisses over the smooth skin covering her midsection, he realizes for the first time that there is no yield to the swell of her belly, none of the softness of robust weight. The mass is firm beneath her skin, and her navel, normally a pretty divot perfectly-sized for the tip of his tongue, peeks upward and outward.

Jaime freezes, his breath shallow in his lungs as the memories strike him like a wall of water. He recalls kneeling before Cersei as she guided his two hands to cup her swollen stomach, her lips upturned with a secret smile meant only for him… 

Nausea rankles his gut, and he vaults from the bed and sprints to the bathing chamber. Questions pierce into his consciousness- _ how long? When did she know? _ _Why didn’t she take_ _ care of it, as soon as she realized? When was she planning to tell me? _

“Jaime,” she calls, her voice tentative and anxious, but he can scarcely hear her over the sound of his own retching.


	7. Chapter Seven

When she recalls how her mother looked as she carried children, Sansa thinks of nothing but grace and easy glides, the appealing picture of a woman with a weighted belly, cared for and seen after, a stunning manifestation of the Mother of religious iconography.

But as she herself shuffles through an expansive Free Cities pavilion, her stomach a cumbersome burden, her limbs ill-equipped to meet her needs...she wonders how she could ever have been so foolish.

It’s all terrible. The sapping of her energy, the persistent nausea that sends her to the privy chamber far more often than she’d prefer…

Yes, she hates the difficulties forced upon a woman carrying a child, particularly a woman with no servants, with little familial support, left almost entirely to her own devices on the isle of Lys. And yet, she finds that she can’t quite hate the reverence, the incredible respect bestowed upon her by shopkeepers and townfolk alike, now that she has a child in her belly.

The boys prove an invaluable asset to her pursuits. Tommen always sees that her sitting spots in the pavilion are properly cushioned, and Rickon and Shaggydog easily dissuade the approach of rogues in the marketplace. But Jaime shows no interest, no concern for her comfort or wellbeing.

_ It doesn’t matter _ , she tells herself in strange, silent moments, when she’s entirely alone and refusing to acknowledge her desire for arms around her midsection and a shoulder to pillow her cheek when she requires relief. Sansa thinks sometimes of her parents- of how Ned Stark always saw to his lady’s needs, to how he’d walk his wife about the grounds of Winterfell when the inner chambers felt too stifling, about how he’d kiss her brow and stroke her rounded belly and clearly express his admiration for the miracle she was creating, preserving, incubating-

Jaime cares nothing for any of that. He never asked for this child and, given the choice, he’d have slipped her a vial of moon tea at the earliest possible opportunity. She knows this of him, knows him to be the least suitable father any woman could find for her children. 

This truth becomes painfully obvious when she observes his continued awkwardness around Tommen, the child borne by the love of his life, the boy with his golden curls and his arresting smile, with a singing voice as surprisingly beautiful as his own.  _ If he can’t fully embrace Tommen as a father should do for his son, then what can he possibly offer my child? _

(And then, in the interest of fairness, she’s forced to confront a still-more-troubling thought:  _ what can  _ ** _I_ ** _ possibly offer my child? Even if we return to Westeros, he’ll be the bastard of a disgraced noblewoman and a high-born knight who betrayed his sacred vows. He can’t inherit Casterly Rock as a bastard, and even if he  _ ** _were_ ** _ trueborn, the Boltons now hold Winterfell. There’s nothing for him there. Nothing at all.) _

She seldom sleeps, her restlessness clinging and pressing and  _ pulsing _ , with no sign of abatement, no possibility for relief. Jaime hasn’t yet banned her from his chambers- of course, the pavilion’s lack of doors would render that task challenging- but although they lie beside each other night after night, an undeniable chasm gapes between them, growing larger in perfect pace with the child inside her. In the early days of her condition, he’d still bed her, and she reveled in the weight of his body, the force of his thrusts, the trace of his tongue over the curve of her neck and the grooves of her clavicle. But on one occasion, while she propped herself on her hands and knees as Jaime fucked her from behind, he used his flesh-and-blood hand to stroke her stomach...and the babe chose that moment to deliver a clear, unmistakable kick. And Jaime froze in position, uttering a choked gasp of surprise as his erection dwindled. Since then, Jaime turns his back to her the moment they slip under the linens, making no attempt to bridge their ever-expanding gap.

When Jaime falls into slumber, she takes these opportunities to shift her body closer to his, reaching over his shoulder and lacing her fingers through those of his golden hand. She yearns for real contact, for genuine affection...but she has no choice but to accept what little he can provide. 

* * *

He steps out of the pavilion into the resplendent light of late morning...only to be confronted by a ghastly sight. A young man splayed in the gateway, eyes open and mouth agape, blood flowing in rivulets from the deep gash across his midsection. And a small, wiry, surprisingly-strong redhaired boy standing a pace away, calmly wiping his sword ( _ Jaime’s _ sword, the small one stowed beneath his bed, far away from swiping little hands…) clean with a calico handkerchief. 

“Gods, Rickon,” Jaime gasps as he approaches, his heart and his gut twisting in tandem.

“He tried to climb the gate just before sunrise. A pickpocket, looks like. Shaggy wanted to eat him for morning meal...but this seemed like a cleaner way to fix the problem.” Tone perfectly even, face perfectly calm...but there’s an undeniable light glinting in his eyes, a hint of a proud smile tugging at the corners of his lips. 

He shunts the boy to the side rather more roughly than he intends, using his real hand to snatch the blade from Rickon’s grasp, deaf to his protests. The dead man looks light enough, it shouldn’t take too long to lift him and carry him around back, to bury him beside the poor mutilated cat, creating a makeshift graveyard for Rickon’s and Shaggydog’s victims…

A gasp from the doorway distract Jaime from his purpose, and he whirls around to see Sansa and Tommen hovering in the threshold, eyes wide and mouths ajar. At the sight of his sister’s horror, Rickon does finally show small signs of contrition; his shoulders slump and his chin tilts toward the ground as he sidles toward the corner of the courtyard, where a similarly-penitent Shaggydog sits on his haunches and awaits his master’s approach.

Tears stand in Sansa’s eyes, and he knows that she’s waiting to let them spill until he turns his back, and so he offers her that relief by kneeling beside the corpse and sliding his arms beneath the lad’s shoulders. Without waiting for a request, Tommen approaches and grabs the young man’s legs, helping Jaime lift the body and carry it behind the pavilion. They drop the man on a soft and sandy cluster of earth, Tommen fetches two shovels from the shed, and the two blond men ( _ uncle and nephew, father and son _ ) dig the grave together. 

When they return to the front courtyard, Rickon is nowhere to be found, but dusty child-sized footsteps (and their large wolf-sized equivalents) lead around the corner to one of the few trees in this desert landscape appropriate for climbing.

As for Sansa, she sits on the stone surface of the entrance passage, back flush against the doorframe, eyes winched shut and breaths coming in and out with great weight and exertion. Panic seizes Jaime’s gut as he rushes to her, scanning the area for the sight of dampness beneath her body...but it’s not childbirth that paralyzes and pains her so. Just the anguish of what she’s witnessed.

“We should never have brought him here,” she whispers, each syllable more aching and solemn than the one before.

“If we hadn’t, he’d be dead. We saved them...Rickon and Tommen both,” he refutes, repeating the words he tells himself night after night, hoping that they sound more honest to her ears than they do in the echo chamber of his mind.

“But look what he’s become. He’s a murderer.”

_ If  _ ** _he’s_ ** _ a murderer, then what does that make me?  _

There’s nothing to say here, no point in argument. Not that he can’t think of arguments aplenty; the most pressing and tempting of all is, of course, his suspicion that these unusual circumstances have naught to do with Rickon’s bloodlust, that it’s inherent, a quality as natural to him as the way he burrows his face into Shaggydog’s fur when he’s upset or the raucous way he snores when he sleeps. 

But his eldest ward, the girl he swore to protect and guard, the girl he took into his bed and made heavy with child...she needs quiet and comfort, the like of which he scarcely knows how to provide.

And so he starts by gathering her body into his arms and cradling her face in the curve of his shoulder, his flesh-and-blood hand skating over the convex swell of her belly. The life within radiates through her skin, all rushing energy and whirring mechanics, the dervish of activity leading to true, tangible, screaming, breathing _ life _ -

Her tears finally fall, hot and salty and free-flowing, and he’s surprised by the soft smile that graces his lips as he presses his lips to her cheek and lets the droplets gather on his tongue.

* * *

Burning, stinging, searing, twisting, bursting-

_ Gods, I want my mother _ . 

A Lysene midwife sits by her side, cooing reassuring phrases in her ear, but in a tongue she scarcely understands. The boys pace and fret and worry; she can hear Tommen snapping at Rickon from the corridor and Rickon snarling in response, Shaggydog immediately echoing the threatening missive. 

And Jaime...he hovers in the bedchamber doorway, never seeking entrance (but never entirely departing, either).

A final push, a pain so keen and so sharp that she’s certain it will rend her body in two-

And then, a high-pitched, lusty wail, and an overwhelming rush of relief.

She holds her breath as the midwife places the babe in her arms, awaiting the inevitable flood of emotion, the unquenchable love, the ceaseless adoration-

But in spite of the sweet sting of affection piercing her heart, she still feels of this earth, of this time, not lost in the miasma of devotion that she once imagined.

He’s a hale little thing, her newborn son. A proper size and a proper weight, powerful lungs ready and willing to cry out when needed, silky flaxen hair and curious, almost-uncanny grey eyes.

( _ Arya’s eyes. Jon Snow’s eyes. Father’s eyes. _ )

Tommen takes the babe in his arms before Jaime ever even enters the birthing chamber. He’s natural with him, effortless in his movements, beautifully honest in his marvel. “What will you call him?” Tommen asks, even as Rickon and Shaggydog peer curiously at the small (albeit noisy) newcomer and Jaime hovers awkwardly in the corridor). 

“Kiran, I think.” It’s a Free Cities name, one she heard in the marketplace in recent months and one that never left her mind.  _ He’s of this place. Of this time. He deserves a name to anchor him to his home.  _

When Jaime finally comes to her bedside, nearly an hour after Tommen and Rickon depart for their lessons (and nearly two hours after Kiran emerged from her inner canal), she feels a sudden urge to clutch the child to her breast and refuse to relinquish him to his father’s arms.  _ He didn’t want you, you’re nothing but a burden to him….even Tommen is just a burden to him, that beautiful boy with a kind and open heart… _

But she ultimately does wait for Jaime to position himself correctly before resting Kiran in the cradle created by his well-muscled arms. Jaime leans down to more closely observe the babe’s face...and Kiran takes that opportunity to reach up and gather Jaime’s beard hair in his fist, yanking hard on the brambly fibers.

A smile illuminates Jaime’s face, a smile that fully reaches his eyes, as he laughs. And for a moment- just for a moment- Sansa allows herself to believe that everything will be all right, that their futures in Lys can remain as sweet and hopeful and pure as they seem in this moment.


	8. Chapter Eight

For a brief, intense, peculiar spell, not so very long ago, Jaime allowed himself to feel a burn of resentment toward Cersei for keeping him away from his natural children. _ I never held them, never comforted them when they wept, never offered them sweets or frolicked with them through the lawns… _

But when he considers the powerful apprehension seizing his gut each time he looks at Kiran’s golden hair and undeniably-Lannister bone structure, he starts to think that Cersei may have had the right of it all along.

_ I was never meant to be a father _, he reflects as he dandles the babe in his arms, trying and failing to force back his winces at each shriek, each whimper, each wail. He’ll endure this discomfort for a time, but the moment that Tommen or Sansa appears with a willingness to take Kiran from his grasp, he’s only too eager to relinquish the fussy child and retreat to the training grounds to observe Rickon’s progress. 

“It isn’t a reflection on you,” Sansa sometimes huffs with exasperation when he allows these dark thoughts to spill from his lips. “He cries with me, he cries with Tommen...he’s a babe. That’s what babes do.” And then she’ll turn back to the weeping child, stroking her tapered fingers over his downy head and dropping light kisses on his brow as she cradles him to her full breasts.

(And this sight only puts him in mind of Cersei nursing Joffrey as an infant and how annoyed he’d been to share her attentions and her beautiful teats with a squalling, red-faced interloper. He hates to confront these memories, to face down his own desperation..._ but it’s all the same. The babe takes Sansa from me, and I can’t forgive him that.) _

He understands little of the small creature’s wants and needs, and he’s not yet prepared to delve into the complexities of Tommen’s wants and needs...but Rickon requires only a sword in his hand and blood on his blade, and Jaime revels in the familiarity of these fascinations. After Rickon sent the would-be burglar to meet the Stranger, Sansa implored Jaime to secret his weapons away in a cupboard or a trunk, far from the boy’s eager grasp. But although he can comprehend her hesitation and loathes the pain in her eyes when she watches her younger brother slash and stab and savage, he can’t bring himself to deprive Rickon of this method of release. _ It makes him feel alive. I know exactly what that is, exactly what that means. _

Perhaps a wish to keep him from supporting and encouraging Rickon’s talent for swordplay lurks behind Sansa’s sudden appearance in his bedchamber on a warm and humid night. She keeps Kiran in a cradle beside her own bed, and he hasn’t managed to coax her away from the sleeping child on any previous occasion. And, of course, he never attempts to bed her while the babe snores only a few paces away- he’s sure that Kiran’s proximity would unman him completely, for more reasons than one.

But she’s soft and warm and pliant in his arms, her clever hands skimming over his every stretch of skin and muscle, her stomach appealingly plush beneath his cheek as he rests his head there, sprinkling kisses across her abdomen before venturing farther south and lapping at the glistening space between her legs, reveling in her pleasured whimpers.

When he at last slides into her, he’s irritated by the discontent that stops his brain, the reminder that this beautiful girl who minds his “home” (as it were) and carried his “son” (as it- he- were) still feels like a temporary port, a convenient stop-over en route to where he truly belongs. 

But here in this distant eastern realm, thoughts of Cersei curdle his blood and weaken his spirit, for he needs no further reminders of his pathetic condition as only half a man, half a soul. And so he rocks his hips into Sansa’s at a bruising pace, determined to lose himself in her body (he may never fully drop anchor there, but it’s a pleasant place to dock, even just for a little while).

“Let’s never sail back to Westeros,” he’ll say when he’s spent, his golden hand rubbing slow circles into her back as his flesh-and-blood one caresses her neck and breasts. “Tommen likes the warm climes and the sea air, and Rickon...well, he’ll learn how things are done in time. And the little one...he’ll know nothing else but this. We should stay.”

“Stay here with our family?” Her sweet voice carries only a tiny lilt of cynicism; she’s baiting him, and he’s unable to resist the flinch that stirs his muscles at the word “family”. 

He punishes- or, perhaps, rewards- her with a forceful pinch to her rear, and once she’s finished laughing (and once she’s sucked a vibrant bloom into the curve of his neck), she says in a quiet, even tone: “Perhaps it’s not such a bad notion. There are no Starks in Winterfell, and yet the world still turns...maybe it will make no difference to anyone if we stay where it’s safe and warm, in a place where Rickon and Tommen and Kiran can grow to be men without the threat of war forever at their backs.”

_ It will make a difference to Cersei, _his mind shrieks- but she hasn’t sent for him, hasn’t searched for him...perhaps Sansa speaks true. No one cares where they’ve gone, no one remembers what they were, what importance they held…

_ Tommen was king, and Cersei’s own child...and yet, she didn’t tear Essos to shreds in search of him, either. Everyone moves on, everyone finds a way to survive… _

Tears sting his eyes as a lob of phlegm lodges itself in his throat. He coughs, a clumsy attempt to clear his airway, but breathing becomes more and more difficult, and his eyes hurt so badly, and the old emptiness stretches and expands inside the hollows of his bones and the caverns of his heart, bringing a sensation so much worse than searing pain-

Sansa coils herself around his body like ivy around a column, and he’s grateful for the opportunity to bury his face in her glossy auburn curls and siphon away her warm vitality, letting it try (a futile effort) to bring him back to life.

* * *

He apologizes so often, and she always yearns to bark in his ears:_ I don’t want to hear it. _

As Jaime balances himself above her, his lips and tongue tracing each curve of her neck and throat and chest, he murmurs the “I’m sorry” refrain....

_ But _ ** _why_ ** _ are you sorry? _ she wants to demand. 

“I’ve ruined you,” he’ll murmur sometimes, when drink addles his senses and mutes his courtesies. 

She can’t deny the truth in this claim, and to say that the notion doesn’t haunt her- the idea of one day returning to Westeros as a sullied creature, with a babe in arms to clearly prove her corruption- would be a grievous falsehood. But she knows that Jaime’s penitence isn’t wielded for her benefit. He needs to cast himself as the villain to make peace with what he’s done- elsewise, he’d need to accept that his former self, that Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard, twin brother (and lover and soulmate) to Queen Cersei...that he could bed a girl of high birth and get a bastard on her with no qualms, no regrets.

_ But I don’t want your apologies _ , she longs to tell him as she arches into him, marveling at the way his golden hair and verdant eyes match her son’s features. _ ‘I promised to see you safe, I promised to take care of you…’ _he’ll lament, even as he spends between her thighs and pummels the pillow behind her head with a clenched, impotent fist…

_ But I am safe, and you’ve taken care of me. You’ve given me all I’ve ever wanted. _

“You gave me a son,” she’ll say every once in a while, trying to tamp down the pain that arises when he casts his gaze downward and his frown creases his face. 

“Not a trueborn son,” he’ll respond, regret etched across every feature. And she’ll feel the nigh-irrepressible urge to shout:

_ You’ve sired four children, none of whom were trueborn. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Not for you. _

These conflicts gather and culminate, never truly permitting them freedom from the difficulties that plague their relationship…

....but when Davos Seaworth docks on the shores of Lys, everything changes irrevocably.

“The two of you must return to Winterfell,” Ser Davos breathes in desperate, urgent tones, all the while focusing his attention on Rickon, who seethes through his teeth and attempts to wave his training sword at the Westerosi knight.

(Jaime wraps his remaining hand around Rickon’s wrist and leans close to whisper to him, and RIckon eventually relinquishes the blade...Sansa feels gratitude for Rickon’s disarmament, but the fact that it ever got this far, that Rickon ever saw fit to fight a man who could easily smack his weapon into the dirt…)

“Why?” she asks Ser Davos, her limbs trembling like branches forced beneath extreme weight, her eyes stinging with tears she doesn’t completely understand…

“The Boltons won’t hold the territory for long. Your brother’s armies and King Stannis’ armies are about to tear them to pieces...Winterfell needs a ruler to preside. And the old saying dictates that a Stark must always be in Winterfell...and Rickon isn’t yet old enough to take the lord’s seat for himself. You must come to serve as his regent.”

The gravity in Ser Davos’ tone makes it clear: _ This is a man with a family. _He knows what he asks, understands what he wants her to do, to relinquish…

“And what of Kiran?”

Ser Davos thins his lips and sighs heavily through his tightened mouth. “Lady Sansa...your son has the Lannister look. And everyone in Westeros knows that Ser Jaime left with you...he won’t survive a single moon once we dock. I can promise you that. I know what it is to be a parent who must sacrifice his children...Lady Sansa. Leaving your son with his...father...is the best you can do for him.”

Her gut pulverizes as she considers the implications of what Ser Davos says. Leaving her son behind, abandoning Jaime and Tommen, yielding the free, clean, unencumbered future she imagined for herself…

A knot lodges in her throat, so tight and bulky that she can’t choke it down despite her best efforts.

“I need to think about it,” she eventually chokes out, and she’s galled by the shadow of apology in Ser Davo’s eyes when he nods and steps far to the side. 

“Of course, my lady...but there isn’t much time.” A sudden impulse urges her to rush to Ser Davos and shove him into the sea…

_ But it’s true, what he says. I can’t take time to think...if I do, then I’ll never board that ship. _

A day later, she makes her choice.

Kiran feels heavy in her arms as she approaches the dock with just a single satchel packed with her corporeal belongings. Her flimsy garments, her aromatic herbs, her ivory hairbrush that Jaime bought her during her first week in Lys, which slides through her tresses unlike any other.

This is all she’s allowed to bring on this journey back to the land of her birth. All she can claim for her own when Rickon takes the high seat in Winterfell, and she has no choice but to watch her young brother claim and rule the North, with herself as a flaccid “regent”, a temporary advisor... 

(In an instant, she understands Cersei’s rage, when incompetents like Joffrey and children like Tommen were crowned, and she had nothing but fragile, impotent oversight of their reigns.)

Jaime said little when Ser Davos presented his case. And when she presented her arguments, he made no effort to bolster her points. 

The world whirs within her skull as she flounders and flails, so desperate to cleave to everything, to anything-

“If you need Rickon, then take him,” she finds herself choking to Ser Davos at the harbor as she grains away from the pier, her nasal cavities clearly bearing no interest in her dignity.

“He can’t go alone,” Ser Davos responds with gentility and grace. “He’s only a child...he needs a regent to oversee his leadership.”

“Then why can’t Jon do it?” She feels the venom of her words stinging her tongue, but she needs to know, needs to hear it-

“Jon must attend to the fight beyond the Wall...he has the Dragon Queen behind him, and they’re very determined to destroy these creatures. Jon cannot stay in Winterfell...but someone must.”

Bile creeps into Sansa’s throat as she allows the truth to settle...Rickon must return north, and she with him...and Kiran can’t accompany them, for fear of his own death…

That night, she bars the cabin door against any who might intrude, her pain and anguish and sorrow throttling her throat until she’s sure she’ll perish before daybreak.

* * *

He watches as they board the ship- Rickon, his fingers trembling over the scabbard of his sword, a restless Shaggydog snarling at the petrified deckhands...and Sansa, pale and radiant, clenching her tiny hand over Rickon’s shoulder and trying to conceal the way her eyes water.

She placed Kiran in his arms, and the babe’s weight felt so foreign, so separate from his own body.._ .I don’t know how to think of a child as part of my own self. _The lad looks like him, he wriggles and smiles in ways that appear familiar- but he’ll never be a full inhabitant of Jaime’s person. Not ever.

“You’re helping Rickon,” he said to Sansa the night before her departure, as he stroked his fingers through her curls and used his lips and tongue to mark her clean stretches of skin- “...but what of your own son?”

Her grip lessened, her eyes shadowed, her tears flowed…

“I’ve no choice,” she gasped as Jaime flicked the tip of his tongue against her core, phlegm congesting her throat and her anguish trickling down her cheeks. "I'll return...once Rickon reaches his majority, I'll return..." 

His eyes narrowed as he bit back scornful retorts, all the while wondering whether she even believed her own words.

He wanted to make love to her, but her impending departure plagued him too deeply, and he found himself unable to rise. She made no mention of the scarlet flush of embarrassment that overtook Jaime’s face, but only curled herself into the circle of his arms, her ragged breaths creating an uneven rhythm somehow soothing enough to lull him to sleep.

As the ship begins to drift away from the dock, Kiran stirs and fidgets, parting his lips to utter a lusty, indignant wail. Jaime watches as Sansa stands at the bow, her hands clenching on the rail at the sound of her son’s cries, a raw and naked pain contorting her features as she quivers and shakes. 

He scarcely notices Tommen’s approach, but he’s relieved when the boy strokes his hand over Kiran’s downy head and rubs the babe’s back until he releases a belch and then relaxes. _ My sons... _he forces himself to observe the similarities between the children, the golden hair and high cheekbones and straight noses...he wants to fasten the title of “family” to their clumsy little trio, to accept ownership of this unit, to form a closeness with Tommen and Kiran to replace the ones he lost when his sister and brother vanished from his life…

“It won’t be the same without her,” Tommen mumbles, tipping his face down to kiss the crown of Kiran’s head. 

He’s speaking of Sansa, to be sure...but the phrase echoes endlessly in Jaime’s skull, conjuring images of the women he’s loved, the women he’s lost, possibilities dashed, happiness torn asunder…

He deposits Kiran in Tommen’s arms before turning on his heel and striding back to the pavilion, determined to escape the sight of the ship, just an ever-shrinking black spot on the horizon.


	9. Epilogue

Tommen loves to collect the smooth, multicolored fragments of glass that wash up on the shore.

In celebration of his tenth nameday, he decides to create a magnificent mural on the wall of the pavilion’s outermost corridor, the one leading out to the expansive courtyard.

(He considered asking Uncle Jaime for permission, but then decided against it. _ It won’t matter to him. Hardly anything does anymore. _)

He gathers his stones and separates them into piles: green with green, red with red, yellow with yellow, blue with blue. A local craftsman traded a tube of paste for a bronze piece Tommen found on the floor of Uncle Jaime’s study..._ I know that it’s wrong to steal, but he’d never notice anyhow… _

As Tommen begins to dab the paste onto the glass bits and affix them to the wall, Kiran crawls on his belly up and down the corridor, chattering away in a high-pitched gibberish, grinning and giggling when Tommen peers over his shoulder and makes a silly face with his eyes crossed and his cheeks bulged.

He has more blue pieces than any other color- _ a lucky thing, since half the picture will be seawater. _ He leans down to retrieve a stone, only to cry out with concern and exasperation as he sees Kiran nibbling on a glass piece, a chunk small enough to choke the child, should he attempt to swallow it. 

“Kiran!” Tommen exclaims, halting his artistic progress to crouch before the babe and snatch the glass from his plump hand. Kiran wails with indignation, but he’s easy to distract- a sugar biscult plucked from the pocket of Tommen’s silk trousers proves more than enough to placate him.

And then he examines the glass fragment he took from Kiran, and his heart leaps into his throat as he realizes that the particular blue hue of this piece exactly matches Sansa’s eyes. And although Kiran doesn’t seem rankled by its absence, some twisting sensation in Tommen’s heart prompts him to hand the cerulean glass back to Sansa’s son.

* * *

Uncle Jaime really does try with Kiran, and Tommen isn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended.

(The word “uncle” never quite separates from Jaime- _ my father by blood, and blood alone _. And although Jaime seemed somewhat put-out years ago, when Tommen would slip up and call him “Uncle”, he scarcely seems aware anymore.)

But he’ll at least attempt to cradle Kiran when he cries, to take him from the wet nurse after he feeds and pace the pavilion, his golden hand patting Kiran’s back in rhythm until he utters a hearty burp. Of course, when Kiran falls into a screaming fit, face red and slicked with snot and drool, or when the babe soils his drawers, Uncle Jaime isn’t anywhere to be found, and Tommen has no choice but to step in and care for his cousin (_ my brother… _). 

Although he knows that Uncle Jaime would give him coin upon his request, Tommen starts to despise the idea of being completely beholden to his uncle-father, and he decides to carry his lute to the seaside marketplace and busk for bits of bronze and silver. He perches on a low sandstone wall, his back to the ocean, reveling in the feel of salt-spritzed air against the back of his neck as his fingers dance across the strings and his voice carries simple tunes, Lysene sea shanties well known to the townsfolk.

He’s just shy of his eleventh nameday, and although he grows taller with each passing day, he still has a girl’s softness in his face and thick, long golden curls…

“You could make a good living, you know,” a heavy-set man with an elaborately-curled beard and bejeweled pendants dangling about his neck tells Tommen one afternoon. Child though he may be, Tommen understands well enough what the man means; boys and girls his age mlll about the marketplace regularly, clad in wispy gowns and tight-fitting breeches, waiting to be sold off to desperate sailors and portly bankers and lonely widowers.

He smiles and shakes his head, finishing his tune and departing with haste, reaching into his belt scabbard to ensure that his dagger (the one he seldom uses, lacking Rickon’s natural skill with a blade) remains girded at his side. 

When the sun rises on his nameday, he’s sure that he can expect no festivities. Uncle Jaime never remembers the date of his third child’s birth. Of course, he doesn’t remember Kiran’s namedays either, so Tommen hardly bothers to take the memory lapses personally.

“It’s my nameday today,” he finds himself murmuring to Kiran as he serves the child a dish of porridge. Kiran doesn’t understand what a nameday is, not really, but he squeals with delight all the same, clapping his hands and attempting to force one of his playthings, a crude wooden doll shaped like an elephant, onto Tommen’s lap. 

Uncle Jaime doesn’t return until early evening, as the sun dips below the horizon. He goes for day-long walks frequently, sometimes returning with a furrowed brow and bloodshot eyes, a sweet, chemical fragrance clinging to his clothes and red marks studding the sides of his neck. And on occasion, he’ll come back to the pavilion with a new false hand- there have been versions carved from polished wood, from ivory, from boiled leather. Although he’s never seen Uncle Jaime abandon his proxies, Tommen can imagine what he does with them, where they go. _ He probably stands at the edge of the high cliff and throws them into the water, to see how great a splash they make when they hit the surface. _After so much loss, so little control, it must be a comfort to shed these dead skins of his own free will.

When he at last reappears at the pavilion (after Tommen dismisses the baby nurse and puts Kiran to bed), Uncle Jaime calls Tommen into the courtyard. He reluctantly shuffles outside...and he comes face-to-face with a beautiful young stallion, with a shining flaxen coat and kind brown eyes. 

“You’re growing all the time...I thought that you should have a proper man’s steed,” Uncle Jaime tells him, his lips curving up into a smile at the sight of Tommen’s astonishment.

Something swells within Tommen’s heart, forcing aside the resentments and the annoyances and the confusions and the disappointments, and before he can take the time to rethink his choice, he throws his arms around Jaime in an awkward, fervent, honest embrace.

* * *

In the early moons after her departure, Sansa could write on a fairly regular basis. Tommen used to scan the skies in search of her ravens, anticipation setting his heart to racing. He’d study her elegant script to learn of her journey north, the battles raging between her bastard brother’s forces and the Bolton interlopers, the rising threat of the undead creatures beyond the Wall, and the silver-haired Dragon Queen ready to set the snowy wilderness ablaze.

(Uncle Jaime wouldn’t read her letters upon their arrivals, but Tommen would eventually find them missing from his own chambers, and he knew well enough to where they’d vanished.)

But as the northern and southern wars both carried on, her missives became less and less frequent. Now that he thinks on it, he hasn’t received a letter from Sansa since Kiran’s second nameday....and the child’s third is fast approaching.

Shortly after his own twelfth nameday, Tommen opens the pavilion gate to a raven from Westeros...but the attached message isn’t written in Sansa’s elaborate hand. Instead, he unfurls a parchment inscribed by Samwell Tarly, some young maester living among Jon Snow’s men, informing him (and Uncle Jaime, although his address comes second, nearly as an afterthought) that Queen Cersei Lannister has died, betrayed by the Ironmen she’d rallied to her side.

He wanders out to the beach, wet sand sluicing between his toes, a thick, dense, immovable weight dropping into his gut and plummeting his heart from his breastbone. _ Mother _…

Tommen knows that tears would be appropriate, any genuine display of grief from a son to the woman who gave him life. But if he forces himself to be honest...he scarcely remembers Cersei Lannister as his mother. It’s been so long, another life entirely...this ache consuming and burdening his insides isn’t sorrow, not really. _ Guilt. May as well call it by its true name _.

No sooner does he step back through the pavilion entryway than he realizes that he cannot, will not tell Uncle Jaime what befell his sister (_ lover, soulmate _ ) across the Narrow Sea. The words shan’t spill from his own lips.. _ .it’s more than I can bear _. 

He finds Uncle Jaime leaning against a stone fence on the back lawn, watching as Kiran chases a vibrant flock of butterflies. Uncle Jaime glances in Tommen’s direction and offers a smile; the sun makes his eyes shine like jewels (_ like emeralds...like Mother’s eyes… _).

A barricade erects itself in Tommen’s throat, stifling his speech and forcing hard, fruitless swallows. Uncle Jaime’s brow starts to crease with concern, but before he can utter a word, Tommen dashes to the wall, forces the parchment into his living hand, and turns on his heel, running into the pavilion like a cowardly child.

When he at last gains the nerve to peer back through the windows, he sees Kiran alone on the lawn, still hustling after his butterflies, blithely unaware of Uncle Jaime’s absence. Striding past the child, Tommen notices a series of deep footprints leading out to the far beach, pressed into the same locations as Tommen’s own footsteps from earlier that day. 

(A peculiar pang pulls at his heartstrings as he realizes that his feet and Uncle Jaime’s feet are nearly the same size now.)

The sun sets, then rises, then sets again, but Uncle Jaime doesn’t resurface. “Where is Jaime?” Kiran asks on the afternoon of the second day (Uncle Jaime never urged Kiran to call him “Father”, and Tommen never thought to ask why- _ it’s not a name that belongs to him _ . _ Never has, never will. _).

The next morning, a sickly dread creeps into Tommen’s bloodstream, and although he’d prefer to remain cloistered in the pavilion with Kiran, where he can avoid finding what he knows awaits him at the shore..._ I’m two-and-ten, nearly a man grown. I can’t hide like a child anymore. _

He follows the footprints along the waterfront and halts when he makes the inevitable discovery: Uncle Jaime’s body lying still and cold in the surf, thick threads of seaweed coiled around his wrists and ankles, his false hand missing completely. His eyes remain open- _ did you die with your eyes open too, Mother? _

He thinks to heft Uncle Jaime’s corpse out of the water for a proper burial...but his limbs lack the required strength. And besides...the tide is quickly rising, and the current will carry Uncle Jaime away soon enough...a strange peace settles over Tommen’s soul at the idea of Uncle Jaime dissolving into the ocean, the salty water so like the Sunset Sea of his childhood, returning to a simpler time, a sweeter place.

Kiran’s voice wafts through the still air, demanding to know where Tommen disappeared to (and why he hasn’t received his morning meal). Each step heavier than the one before, Tommen trudges back to the pavilion, a pulsing ache thrumming at his temples as his thoughts and feelings swirl and clash and threaten to combust within his skull. In an effort to level himself, he goes about his day as he normally would, straightening the house and exercising his stallion and plucking his lute and tending to Kiran.

That night, as he finishes the three-year-old’s favorite bedtime story and tucks him beneath the coverlets, Kiran asks for Jaime again. But he’s tired, and the air’s warmth only heightens his drowsiness, and a light swipe of lavender oil over his brow and beneath his nostrils finally sends him to sleep.

Tommen takes a moment to recline beside Kiran, nestling his face into the little boy’s pillow, taking comfort from his rhythmic breathing. Scalding tears course down his cheeks as he whispers into Kiran’s golden curls: “You weren’t enough. I wasn’t enough, either.”

* * *

It comes as a surprise, when Tommen realizes that he may one day want for money.

As a prince- a prince with Lannister blood, besides- Tommen Baratheon wanted for nothing. And as king, he enjoyed access to all the riches of the realm. Even during his Lysene life, they had an opulent home and plenty of coin for food and treats and clothing…

But when he searches Uncle Jaime’s chambers for his store of gold (feeling painfully guilty all the while), he finds an ample amount, but nothing resembling the endless riches he once imagined.

He needs to find some form of permanent employment; strumming his melodies in the marketplace on sunny afternoons shan’t suffice, not for long. One morning, as he runs a brush through the gilded hide of his stallion (Leo, named for the great cat who shares his coloring, the emblem of House Lannister), he decides to visit the stables on Lys’s northern end and offer himself as an apprentice horse trainer.

Of course, he first must find someone to mind Kiran while he earns for his household. He sends a missive to the woman who’d been Kiran’s baby nurse, asking whether she’d consider looking after the lad during the day. The woman tells his messenger that she hasn’t the time herself, but that she’ll send her daughter instead.

The sound of knuckles rapping the front door alerts Tommen to the governess’s arrival the next day. He takes Kiran by the hand and guides the almost-four-year-old to the entryway, telling him to get ready to meet a new friend-

When he swings the door open, Tommen feels a hot flush of scarlet flooding his cheeks as he struggles to capture his breath.

She’s a lissome lass about his own age, with tawny skin, thick black hair, and slightly-hooded brown eyes brimming with friendly warmth. She smiles, setting her face alight at once with a sweet, clean, pure radiance that instantly nestles into the crevices of his heart, taking up residence there.

“You are Master Tommen?” she asks in Lysene, her voice delicate and resonant, like the sound of the highest strings on his lute-

“Yes,” he coughs, embarrassed by the hoarseness of his tone. Kiran grasps the leg of Tommen’s trousers and gives an indignant yank, obviously wondering why he hasn’t been introduced yet, but first…

“What’s your name?” he asks the girl, his pulse thumping raucously in his ears as he awaits her answer. 

“Egeria, master,” she replies. A moment of hesitation, and then she starts to lift her hands to clasp them at her chest and deliver the bow customary for Lysene servants when addressing their superiors-

Impulse urges Tommen to catch her closest hand before she can begin the supplication. It’s small and calloused and so very warm, and he thinks for a moment that he’s never held anything that fits so well in his grasp, never in his thirteen years of life…

He brushes his lips over her knuckles, just as he saw courtiers do back in King’s Landing (_ as Uncle Jaime used to do with Mother, all those years ago… _)-

When Egeria giggles with surprise and pleasure, he echoes the sound...and for the first time since Sansa’s departure, his laugh feels genuine.

* * *

Kiran takes to Egeria immediately, and Tommen feels relieved to depart for the stables on a daily basis with the knowledge that his little kinsman is happy and well-cared-for.

“Until tonight, Kiran!” he calls to the lad as he leaves each morning, and Kiran’s bright response of “Until tonight, Papa!” brings him equal parts joy and uncertainty.

He’s the only “father” Kiran knows...perhaps it does no harm for the child to believe that it’s always been so, that no other man could ever claim to be his sire? After all, he doesn’t need to be the progeny of Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard and Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell...he’s just a Lysene boy with no family name, nothing to tether him to a legacy or to a set of expectations. In fact, the five-year-old can scarcely even understand the Common Tongue; he speaks Lysene with Egeria, Lysene with Tommen, Lysene on the streets and at the piers. _ The Great Houses of Westeros have no claim over this boy. None whatsoever. _

As for Egeria...she’s only been with Kiran for a few moons, but she eases into their lives so seamlessly that it’s difficult to remember a time without her. Tommen tries not to watch her overmuch, for fear of making her uncomfortable...but the way she plays with Kiran and patiently abides by the ludicrous rules he sets for his games, the way she keeps their home in perfect order, the way Ser Pounce curls in her lap and purrs as she strokes his soft belly, the ethereal beauty of her voice when she sings along to his lute tunes…

It’s with some shame that he finds himself calling Egeria to mind when he’s alone in his chamber at night, stroking past his smallclothes and taking himself in hand. He only began this habit recently, usually imagining dancers or courtesans from the marketplace-

(-with the occasional image of Sansa in her sheerest gown, her breasts full and heavy after carrying Kiran, her limbs long and graceful, her hair a cascade of crimson-)

-but now, he pictures Egeria’s clever hands on him, her bowed lips on his own, the press of her soft bosom against his chest, the aromatic scent of her dark curls.

In spite of his nocturnal imaginings, he makes no effort to touch Egeria until the week of his fourteenth nameday. He’ll be free from the stables on his actual nameday, and he’s already arranged to take Kiran sailing on the tiny pontoon boat he recently purchased. He mentioned his upcoming nameday to Egeria nearly a moon prior, but he never expected her to remember…

...and so, when she presents him with a beautifully-woven sun cap and wishes him a happy nameday before she departs on the preceding evening, he can’t stop himself from coiling his arm around her waist and pulling her in for a kiss.

She doesn’t resist, instead lacing her own arms around his neck and kissing him back. She’s only three-and-ten, but clearly more experienced than he...and yet, he finds himself excited rather than ashamed, eager to learn and discover and connect with her however he can. 

Soon, they end each and every day this way, with delicious, intoxicating kisses- Egeria braced against the door as Tommen tentatively traces her nascent curves, Tommen moaning at the back of his throat when Egeria slides her tongue into his mouth-

Eventually, they find themselves seated close together on the divan, Kiran blessedly already abed. As they kiss and caress each other, Egeria rocks herself against Tommen’s thigh, her hand reaching for the bulge below his trouser waistband-

And Tommen pulls away, loosely encircling her wrist with his fingers and guiding her from his lap. Egeria’s brows knit together with a hint of affront, and he attempts to placate her by stroking her hair behind her ears and kissing her ear before whispering, “I shan’t dishonor you. I’d never try to bed you without taking you to wife.”

Egeria rapidly blinks with astonishment, and her eyes turn wide as Tommen removes a bauble from his trouser folds and holds it into the light. It’s an ornate ruby and diamond ring that he found in the recesses of Uncle Jaime’s wardrobe- he remembers his mother wearing the ornament on occasion, and when he asked her about it, she stroked her long, tapered fingers through his curls and told him that it once belonged to his Grandmother Joanna.

The Lysene seal their betrothals with rings; Egeria knows well what he proposes with this offering. And when she slides the ring onto her finger and draws him near for another kiss, Tommen feels no shame about the joyous tears that spill down his cheeks and into Egeria’s mouth.

* * *

Egeria tells Tommen that she’s with child just days before his fifteenth nameday.

He lifts her from the ground (she’s such a tiny thing, and he’s grown tall, as tall as Uncle Jaime, with hardened muscles in his arms) and spins her in a circle, his laughter echoing through each chamber of the enormous pavilion. Six-year-old Kiran demands to know what he finds so funny...and when Tommen and Egeria tell Kiran that he’ll soon welcome a brother or a sister, the lad throws his arms around Egeria’s midsection and kisses her (still flat) belly.

_ Family. This is my family. My wife, my son, my soon-to-be baby… _

In a single, crystallized instant, he decides that this is the happiest moment of his entire life.

But soon after, an ominous shadow flutters through the pavilion gate, determined to destroy this exquisite idyll.

He recognizes Sansa’s handwriting the moment he untangles the parchment roll from the Westerosi raven’s foot. A quick sweep of his gaze tells him that the wars have ended, the Dragon Queen and the Black Prince have taken King’s Landing, Sansa has been crowned Queen in the North, and young Rickon has chosen to relinquish his lordship and go Beyond the Wall to study combat alongside the Free Folk.

And now that the trouble is over and done, Sansa wants to sail for Lys and bring her son “home” to “claim his rights as the heir to the North”. 

Rage scalds Tommen’s blood, stinging the walls of each vein. _ She dares to claim her “son” now? This child, who remembers nothing of the woman who bore him? This boy, who has a loving family and a promising future right here? _

Bile rises in his throat, threatening to stifle, to choke. He clenches his fist around the parchment and rushes to the seaside, wondering how to respond, what to say-

He can hear Egeria and Kiran calling to him from the pavilion- it’s about time for midday meal, and his wife made his favorite: roasted pheasant and pomegranate sauce. This missive from Sansa has nothing to do with his here, his now..._ she’s kept us waiting for five years. She can wait a while longer. _

With a resolute squeeze, Tommen pulverizes the parchment into a tight ball and thrusts it into the awaiting sea, never looking over his shoulder as he walks back to his house and his family.

_ Fin _

  
  



End file.
